“Aqui: jacet: Petrus Petri: magister Eclesia: Scte: Marie: Toletani: fama: Per exemplum: pro more: huic: bona: Crescit: qui presens: templum: construxit: Et hic quiescit: quod: quia: tan: mire: Fecit: vili: sentiat: ire: ante: Dei: Vultum: pro: quo: nil: restat: inultum: Et sibi: sis: merce: qui solus: cuncta: Coherce: obiit: x dias de Novembris: Era: de M: et CCCXXVIII (A.D. 1290).” I did not see this inscription, and am unable to say, therefore, whether it is original; but I believe there is little doubt of this.[228] I should have much more doubt as to the nationality of the architect. The Spanish writers all talk of him as “_Pedro Perez_;” but as the Latin inscription is the only authority for his name, he may as fairly be called Pierre le Pierre, and so become a Frenchman; and I cannot help thinking that this is, on the whole, very much more likely than that he should have been a Spaniard. This, at any rate, is certain: the first architect of Toledo, whether he were French or Spanish, was thoroughly well acquainted with the best French churches, and could not otherwise have done what he did. In Spain itself there was, as I have said before, nothing to lead gradually to the full development of the pointed style. We find, on the contrary, buildings, planned evidently by foreign hands, rising suddenly, without any connexion with other buildings in their own district, and yet with most obvious features of similarity to works in other countries erected just before them. Such, I have shown, is the case with the cathedrals at Burgos, at Leon, and at Santiago, and such even more decidedly is the case here. Moreover, in Toledo, if anywhere, was such a circumstance as this to be expected. In this part of Spain there was in the thirteenth century no trained school of native artists. Even after the conquest the Moors continued, as has been said before, to act as architects for Christian buildings whether secular or ecclesiastical, and, indeed, to monopolize all the science and art of the country which they no longer ruled. In such a state of things, I can imagine nothing more natural than that, though the Toledans may have been well content to employ Mahomedan art in their ordinary works, yet, when it came to be a question of rebuilding their cathedral on a scale vaster than anything which had as yet been attempted, they would be anxious to adopt some distinctly Christian form of art; and, lacking entirely any school of their own, would be more likely to secure the services of a Frenchman than of any one else; whilst the French archbishop, who at the time occupied the see, would be of all men the least likely to sympathise with Moresque work, and the most anxious to employ a French artist. But, however this may have been, the church is thoroughly French in its ground-plan and equally French in all its details[229] for some height from the ground; and it is not until we